Obama’s Thanksgiving fairy tale -- the president wants us to give thanks to him, for good economic news

President Obama’s November 23rd radio address was a Thanksgiving fairy tale.

Although he didn’t mention the holiday, his remarks suggested that we give thanks to him, for what he called “some good things happening in our economy”—all of which turn out to be as deceptive as his claims about ObamaCare.

The president said, “Our businesses have created 7.8 million new jobs in the past 44 months.” However, as economic commentator Kenn Jacobine points out, that averages to 177,000 jobs per month over 44 months, whereas during the same time period, the working age population has grown by an average of 213,000 workers per month. Thus, under Mr. Obama, his jobs “recovery” is actually a jobs recession.

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Furthermore, as McClatchy Tribune Services reports, “according to Labor Department statistics, the number of people working part time in the U.S. grew four-and-a-half times as fast as the number of full-time workers. And the share of all workers who mainly hold part-time jobs is at levels not seen since the early 1980s.” This underemployment exposes as fantasy the president’s boast that “we have fought our way back…to rebuild on a new foundation for stronger, more durable economic growth.”

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Actually, economic growth (in gross domestic product) under President Obama has averaged 2.3% over the past four years. Yet to produce anywhere near the job growth the president aspires to, GDP growth would have to roughly double—and to achieve that would require a miracle: that the president would change Obamanomics to the tax-cutting and free market policies of Reaganomics. As economist Peter Morici writes, “Four years into the Reagan recovery, after a deeper recession than the one Obama inherited, GDP was advancing at a 4.9 percent annual pace, and jobs creation was quite robust.”

In his radio address, the president boasted that, “We decided to reverse our addiction to foreign oil. And today, we generate more renewable energy than ever, more natural gas than anybody, and for the first time in nearly 20 years, America now produces more oil than we buy from other countries.”

That’s no thanks to President Obama. According to Investor’s Business Daily, “While production is up under Obama, this has nothing to do with his policies, but is the result of permits and private industry efforts that began long before Obama occupied the White House.” IBD adds, “Obama has chosen almost always to limit production. He canceled leases on federal lands in Utah, suspended them in Montana, delayed them in Colorado and Utah, and canceled lease sales off the Virginia coast. His administration also has been slow-walking permits in the Gulf of Mexico, approving far fewer while stretching out review times.”

In his radio address, Mr. Obama admits about ObamaCare that, “…the rollout of the marketplace where you can buy affordable plans has been rough,” but he offers as compensation that, “health care costs are growing at the slowest rate in 50 years.”

Not true, according to FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, which writes, “Obama greatly exaggerated when he credited the health care law for bending the cost curve on health care spending. Experts say the down economy is the overwhelming reason that national health care spending has been growing at historically slow rates in recent years.”

Ignoring his role (especially the role of ObamaCare) in creating that “down economy,” in his radio address the president patted himself on the back when he said, “…since I took office, we’ve cut our deficits by more than half.”

But in a fact check, the Associated Press writes, “An estimated $78 billion of that deficit reduction comes from automatic across-the-board spending cuts, called sequestration, that began taking effect in March—over Obama's protests.” The AP adds, “While annual deficits are declining, the national debt—the accumulation of deficits going back to the days of George Washington—is still rising. It stood at $10.6 trillion the day Obama took office. It's now $16.7 trillion, according to the Treasury Department's Bureau of the Public Debt.” That is, the AP writes, “…the largest increase to date under any president.”

In his radio address, President Obama lamented, “Imagine how much farther along we could be if both parties were working together.”

The president’s hand wringing is underhanded. That’s because he has disdainfully rejected Republican ideas and legislative proposals regarding almost every one of his major policy initiatives, including reforms in health care, financial regulation, taxes, spending, immigration, and energy use.

Here’s how President Obama concluded his radio address: “…as long as I’m President, I’ll keep doing everything I can to create jobs, grow the economy, and make sure that everyone who works hard has a chance to get ahead.”

All this is reminiscent of the way President Clinton described a string of Mr. Obama’s fabrications during the 2008 Democratic primaries. President Clinton said, “Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.”

Communications consultant Jon Kraushar is at www.jonkraushar.net. He is a consultant to corporate and political leaders including Steve Forbes.